25% tariffs “for all cars not manufactured in the United States.” This is what the US president Donald Trump announced Wednesday. The Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, who was also in the Oval Office has confirmed that the rates will begin to be applied as of April 3.
“You will charge a 25%rate, but if you make your car within the country, there will be no tariff,” said the tycoon, who has defended the measure as a way to boost the country’s reindustrialization: “This will continue to boost a growth as you had not seen before choosing me [como presidente]. We were losing all our factories. ”
The US president has assured that there is no possibility that turning back in his plan in the next few days. “It is 100%permanent,” said Trump. In his erratic tariff, the president has starred in different episodes where, once the rates have entered into force, within a few days he has postponed them. It is something that Mexico and Canada know firsthand, who have seen how the White House has postponed up to 25%tariffs.
The announcement of the new tariff policies on cars imports a week before the “Day of Liberation” – next April 2 – when the White House will deploy the highest package of import rates. On this, the tycoon has advanced that it will be much more “indulgent” with the application of tariffs, although it has not specified what it refers to the expression.
“In many cases, it will be inferior to the tariff that have been charging us for decades. So I think people will be surprised a lot, I think it will be a pleasant surprise. We are trying to keep it relatively conservative,” he said. He has also said that in the case of Tesla cars that manufactures Elon Musk, the 25% tariff “could be neutral.”
As is customary in the chaotic Trump tariff war, the appearance on Wednesday has been a last minute decision, announced shortly before by the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt. The tariff announcement, which threatens to cause an earthquake in the US automobile sector, coincides with the National Security scandal on the War Chat in Signal, filtered by error.
The EU “deeply laments” Trump’s decision
“Deeply regret the United States decision to impose tariffs on European automobile exports,” said the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Irene Castro reports.
“The automobile industry is an engine of innovation, competitiveness and high quality employment, thanks to supply chains deeply integrated on both sides of the Atlantic,” says von der Leyen: “As I have said on previous occasions, tariffs are taxes: they harm companies and are still worse for consumers, both in the United States and in the European Union. We will now evaluate this announcement, together with other measures that the United States is raising.
And the president of the Community Executive adds: “As a great commercial power and a strong community of 27 Member States, we will protect our workers, companies and consumers throughout the European Union.”
Automobile tariffs are one of the measures that the US president had some time announcing. In an appearance from his Mar-A-Lago mansion last February, Trump said he would also tax the import of pharmaceutical products and microprocessors. It was then that he said that “probably” cars tariffs would be 25%.
At the beginning of March, after 25 % tariffs came into force to Mexican and Canadian imports, the White House rectified and granted a month of grace to the automobile sector. The Trump administration announced that it postponed the application of rates to vehicles after the request for exemption of the three large American car manufacturers: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The truce granted then affected all those vehicles included in the T-MEC treaty, the renewed version of the gasoline with Mexico and Canada, which Trump signed during his first mandate and now seems to want to jump through the air.
Tariffs could also increase the cost of vehicles for consumers in thousands of dollars, affecting new car sales and causing job losses, since the US car industry depends largely on imported parts, according to the automobile research center. The United States imported car products worth $ 474,000 million in 2024, including cars worth 220,000 million. Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany, all of them close to the US, were the main suppliers.
Source: www.eldiario.es
